FAQ

Knowledge Base

What is the Difference Between Active FTP and Passive FTP?


 

The Basics

FTP is a TCP based service exclusively. There is no UDP component to FTP. FTP is an unusual service in that it utilizes two ports, a ‘data’ port and a ‘command’ port (also known as the control port). Traditionally these are port 21 for the command port and port 20 for the data port. The confusion begins however, when, depending on the mode, the data port is not always on port 20.

 

Active FTP

In active mode FTP, the client connects from a random unprivileged port (N > 1023) to the FTP server’s command port, port 21. Then the client starts listening to port N+1 and sends the FTP command PORT N+1 to the FTP server. The server will then connect back to the client’s specified data port from its local data port, which is port 20.

From the server-side firewall’s standpoint, to support active mode FTP the following communication channels need to be opened:

  • FTP server’s port 21 from anywhere (Client initiates connection)
  • FTP server’s port 21 to ports > 1023 (Server responds to client’s control port)
  • FTP server’s port 20 to ports > 1023 (Server initiates data connection to client’s data port)
  • FTP server’s port 20 from ports > 1023 (Client sends ACKs to server’s data port)

In step 1, the client’s command port contacts the server’s command port and sends the command PORT 1027. The server then sends an ACK back to the client’s command port in step 2. In step 3, the server initiates a connection on its local data port to the data port the client specified earlier. Finally, the client sends an ACK back.

The main problem with active mode FTP actually falls on the client side. The FTP client doesn’t make the actual connection to the data port of the server–it simply tells the server what port it is listening on and the server connects back to the specified port on the client. From the client side firewall, this appears to be an outside system initiating a connection to an internal client–something that is usually blocked.

 

Active FTP Example

Below is an actual example of an active FTP session. The only things that have been changed are the server names, IP addresses, and user names. In this example, an FTP session is initiated from testbox1.slacksite.com (192.168.150.80), a linux box running the standard FTP command line client, to testbox2.slacksite.com (192.168.150.90), a linux box running ProFTPd 1.2.2RC2. The debugging (-d) flag is used with the FTP client to show what is going on behind the scenes. Everything in red is the debugging output which shows the actual FTP commands being sent to the server and the responses generated from those commands. Normal server output is shown in black, and user input is in bold.

There are a few interesting things to consider about this dialog. Notice that when the PORT command is issued, it specifies a port on the client (192.168.150.80) system, rather than the server. The opposite behavior is seen when using passive FTP. While on the subject, a quick note about the format of the PORT command. As shown in the example below, it is formatted as a series of six numbers separated by commas. The first four octets are the IP address while the last two octets comprise the port that will be used for the data connection. To find the actual port multiply the fifth octet by 256 and then add the sixth octet to the total. Thus in the example below the port number is ( (14*256) + 178), or 3762. A quick check with netstat should confirm this information.

testbox1: {/home/p-t/slacker/public_html} % ftp -d testbox2

Connected to testbox2.slacksite.com.

220 testbox2.slacksite.com FTP server ready.

Name (testbox2:slacker): slacker

—> USER slacker

331 Password required for slacker.

Password: TmpPass

—> PASS XXXX

230 User slacker logged in.

—> SYST

215 UNIX Type: L8

Remote system type is UNIX.

Using binary mode to transfer files.

ftp> ls

ftp: setsockopt (ignored): Permission denied

—> PORT 192,168,150,80,14,178

200 PORT command successful.

—> LIST

150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.

drwx——   3 slacker    users         104 Jul 27 01:45 public_html

226 Transfer complete.

ftp> quit

—> QUIT

221 Goodbye.

 

Passive FTP

In order to resolve the issue of the server initiating the connection to the client, a different method for FTP connections was developed. This was known as passive mode, or PASV, after the command used by the client to tell the server it is in passive mode.

In passive mode FTP the client initiates both connections to the server, solving the problem of firewalls filtering the incoming data port connection to the client from the server. When opening an FTP connection, the client opens two random unprivileged ports locally (N > 1023 and N+1). The first port contacts the server on port 21, but instead of then issuing a PORT command and allowing the server to connect back to its data port, the client will issue the PASV command. The result of this is that the server then opens a random unprivileged port (P > 1023) and sends P back to the client in response to the PASV command. The client then initiates the connection from port N+1 to port P on the server to transfer data.

From the server-side firewall’s standpoint, to support passive mode FTP the following communication channels need to be opened:

  • FTP server’s port 21 from anywhere (Client initiates connection)
  • FTP server’s port 21 to ports > 1023 (Server responds to client’s control port)
  • FTP server’s ports > 1023 from anywhere (Client initiates data connection to random port specified by server)
  • FTP server’s ports > 1023 to remote ports > 1023 (Server sends ACKs (and data) to client’s data port)

In step 1, the client contacts the server on the command port and issues the PASV command. The server then replies in step 2 with PORT 2024, telling the client which port it is listening to for the data connection. In step 3 the client then initiates the data connection from its data port to the specified server data port. Finally, the server sends back an ACK in step 4 to the client’s data port.

While passive mode FTP solves many of the problems from the client side, it opens up a whole range of problems on the server side. The biggest issue is the need to allow any remote connection to high numbered ports on the server. Fortunately, many FTP daemons, including the popular WU-FTPD allow the administrator to specify a range of ports which the FTP server will use.

The second issue involves supporting and troubleshooting clients which do (or do not) support passive mode. As an example, the command line FTP utility provided with Solaris does not support passive mode, necessitating a third-party FTP client, such as ncftp. Note: This is no longer the case–use the -p option with the Solaris FTP client to enable passive mode!

With the massive popularity of the World Wide Web, many people prefer to use their web browser as an FTP client. Most browsers only support passive mode when accessing ftp:// URLs. This can either be good or bad depending on what the servers and firewalls are configured to support.

 

Passive FTP Example

Below is an actual example of a passive FTP session. The only things that have been changed are the server names, IP addresses, and user names. In this example an FTP session is initiated from testbox1.slacksite.com (192.168.150.80), a linux box running the standard FTP command line client, to testbox2.slacksite.com (192.168.150.90), a linux box running ProFTPd 1.2.2RC2. The debugging (-d) flag is used with the FTP client to show what is going on behind the scenes. Everything in red is the debugging output which shows the actual FTP commands being sent to the server and the responses generated from those commands. Normal server output is shown in black, and user input is in bold.

Notice the difference in the PORT command in this example as opposed to the active FTP example. Here, we see a port being opened on the server (192.168.150.90) system, rather than the client. .

testbox1: {/home/p-t/slacker/public_html} % ftp -d testbox2

Connected to testbox2.slacksite.com.

220 testbox2.slacksite.com FTP server ready.

Name (testbox2:slacker): slacker

—> USER slacker

331 Password required for slacker.

Password: TmpPass

—> PASS XXXX

230 User slacker logged in.

—> SYST

215 UNIX Type: L8

Remote system type is UNIX.

Using binary mode to transfer files.

ftp> passive

Passive mode on.

ftp> ls

ftp: setsockopt (ignored): Permission denied

—> PASV

227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,150,90,195,149).

—> LIST

150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list

drwx——   3 slacker    users         104 Jul 27 01:45 public_html

226 Transfer complete.

ftp> quit

—> QUIT

221 Goodbye.

 

Other Notes

Active FTP will not function when used in conjunction with a client-side NAT (Network Address Translation) device which is not smart enough to alter the IP address info in FTP packets.

 

Summary

The following chart should help admins remember how each FTP mode works:

Active FTP :

command : client >1023 -> server 21

data    : client >1023 <- server 20

Passive FTP :

command : client >1023 -> server 21

data    : client >1024 -> server >1023

A quick summary of the pros and cons of active vs. passive FTP:

Active FTP is beneficial to the FTP server admin, but detrimental to the client side admin. The FTP server attempts to make connections to random high ports on the client, which would almost certainly be blocked by a firewall on the client side. Passive FTP is beneficial to the client, but detrimental to the FTP server admin. The client will make both connections to the server, but one of them will be to a random high port, which would almost certainly be blocked by a firewall on the server side.

There is somewhat of a compromise. Since admins running FTP servers will need to make their servers accessible to the greatest number of clients, they will almost certainly need to support passive FTP. The exposure of high level ports on the server can be minimized by specifying a limited port range for the FTP server to use. Thus, everything except for this range of ports can be firewalled on the server side. While this doesn’t eliminate all risk to the server, it decreases it tremendously.

 

References

An excellent reference on how various internet protocols work and the issues involved in firewalling them can be found in the O’Reilly and Associates book, Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Ed, by Brent Chapman and Elizabeth Zwicky.

Finally, the definitive reference on FTP would be RFC 959, which sets forth the official specifications of the FTP protocol. RFCs can be downloaded from numerous locations, including http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc959.html.